Wednesday, 5 March 2014

This is a short report from a section of the Wagram game. My self and Pete, a regular, fought the action around Baumersdorf. Pete had played as Austrians defending the area and he wanted to try attacking the Austrian line in this sector. The forces consist of Oudinot's Corps on the French side and Two Divisions of the Austrian II Corps under Hohenzollern. The pictures are in no particular order.
The French started by advancing the Divisions of Tharreau and Claparede side by side against the Austrian line. The Austrians started by surprising the French by advancing against their right flank with light troops and a cavalry regiment of Uhlans.
Now for some piccies. Some have nothing to do with the battle we played, but there is a new camera lens that needs to be tried out!

This gives an idea of the size of the Austrian line infantry division. It is a mixture of German and Hungarian line infantry.

A new lens. This is a telephoto lens that has the affect of opening up the picture. The downside, without extra lighting as I discovered, is that shadowing becomes more pronounced.

Another telephoto shot that shows the whole of the French reserve line along to the French left flank at the top of the picky in the distance.

A close up with the standard lens of Austrian Cuirassiers. I think the detail you get in 10mm is quite brilliant. I'm also practising with manual focus, photography knowledge is now becoming a necessity.

This shows part of the actual action. The initial Austrian attack was in the foreground. After a cavalry clash that was indecisive, the Austrian withdrew to their side of the river. Now you can see a French Division advancing. Things are already slightly problematical for the French as this Division is the reserve Division replacing Claparede who got entangled in a fight near the village that was repulsed.

This is Tharreau's initial assault on part of Baumersdorf. The Austrians would hold, but the Divisional Generals for both sides would become casualties. This left Hohezollern and Oudinot having to step down to act as Divisional commanders.

This is the left hand portion of the previous picky. It shows a lot of retreat markers on Tharreau's troops after a successful counter-attack by Austrian infantry. The Austrians would keep advancing and cause the whole of Tharreau's Division to retire in order to regroup. The fact that all of Tharreau's Division, and Claparede's, except one battalion in each of elite light infantry, were second class line troops, did not help.

This is from the other end of the village from the French side and shows LeGrand, the reserve Division, filtering his troops through to the front line.

This is towards the end of the battle. Taken from the Austrian side, the French have taken one part of Baumersdorf. The militia that were deployed there can be seen retreating. The French victory would be short lived. The troops that were successful were part of Tharreau's Division and they would soon be retiring.

This is to the left of the previous picky and shows a general firefight developing. The French light infantry would prove to be a serious problem for the Austrian gunners who would limber and redeploy in order not to suffer excessive casualties.

This is a picky taken at the start of the game on the Austrian left. It shows the Uhlans, a regiment of 192 troopers! Jaegers are deployed to their front, deployed fully in open order.
As an interest, we concluded the game by assessing losses. Tactically the Austrians still held Baumersdorf. Nightfall would come before the French might make progress away from the village in the general firefight, their reserves having quite high morale.
The stats show start numbers, casualties and % losses.
French
Infantry: 3456 : 399 : 11.5%
Cavalry: 144 : 45 : 31.3%
Gunners: 128 : 32 : 25.0%
Guns: 32 : 2 : 6.3%

We weren't aware of how very similar the % losses were and its something that I might try to do for the games as a standard report.
That's it for now, I'm now laying out the battlefield from Baumersdorf to the Austrian far left so that I can fight Davout's action around Markgrafneusiedl.

About Me

I'm now a young 59 year old who wargames everyday thanks to my better other half (she is indeed the pretty one in the piccy) who goes out and does the real work and my son who has helped me with the "software" bits.
I now do "my own thing" in 10mm in a more Grandiose way "In the Grandest Manner" in a new building called the "Situation Room".